Some Hen-dy Advice

Jan 27

You are important. Your ideas matter. Your love and happiness make this world better. — Ruth Bader Ginsbird

Here’s What’s Happening At Good Spirits Farm

This little brown hen is hanging tough while putting all my nursing skills to the test. After four years as a chicken tender, I have found that sick chickens either bounce right back or…die. They’re so fragile, and by the time they start acting poorly, they’re often too far gone to save. But this gal is refusing to give up. I’ve tried all my usual tricks: Treating her for mites, lice, and worms, giving her vitamin-laced water, scrambled eggs for extra protein, and, of course, keeping her in isolation so she can recover in peace. Her appetite is good, but she’s just weak and wobbly on her feet.

If she’s not throwing in the towel, I won’t either. Is babysitting her three times a day to make sure she eats and drinks and cooking scrambled eggs a silly amount of effort for a single hen? Yup. But: I never want to be so hardened by farming I won’t try to do my best by every living thing.
I am coming to grips with needing to raise egg prices. I have tried so hard not to, thinking things would settle with feed prices. That….doesn’t seem to be happening. Now that I am running the farm on my own, the razor-thin egg margins seem sharper than ever, and I have to be more judicious about what is and isn’t working. The good news is that supermarkets seem to be doing the heavy lifting of preparing folks for eggs being more expensive. Hopefully, my customers will understand that if a huge corporation like Walmart can’t take a loss on eggs forever, a little independent farmer cannot do it either.
It’s about time to get the sweet potato slips started. I love that I can use the dregs of last year’s crop to start this year’s bed. Right now, the taters are warming on a heating mat next to a south-facing window. (Doesn’t this sounds idyllic? I too suspect my personal growth would be accelerated by lying about on a warm mat in the sun.) In another week or so, I’ll cut them in half and stage them pointy-sides-up in little cups of water. If all goes to plan, by April those ends will be sprouting, and by May those sprouts will have formed sturdy roots, making them ready to tuck gently into the ground.

Here’s What I Loved This Week

I adored every minute of the audiobook version of “How To Be Perfect,” by Michael Schur. Schur was the creator of the hit T.V. show “The Good Place,” and the book is basically moral philosophy for dummies. Like Schur’s T.V. writing, it manages to be funny, smart, and heartfelt all at the same time.